Succulents and More™

We once had a Great Dane named Cisco. We got him as a young puppy. Puppyhood didn’t last long. Within a year, he had tripled in weight. He wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but he was very loving (and lovable). Cisco with my mother Legs for days For some reason, I thought of Cisco when I finally accepted the fact that the hechtia in the photo below was simply too big to live here: Hechtia ‘Oaxaca Sunset’ reaching towards Agave impressa This top-down view... ...illustrates the situation very well It wasn’t always like that. Here’s Hechtia ‘Oaxaca Sunset’, on the right in all its compact-sized glory, in March 2023: Hechtia ‘Oaxaca Sunset’ on the right ( Lachenalia quadricolor , a South African bulb, on the left) But, like Cisco, Hechtia ‘Oaxaca Sunset’ eventually grew up and ended up occupying more space than I had allotted (the fact that it formed a clump, rather than just one rosette, exacerbated the situation). Seeing how Agave impressa would always come out on top, it wasn’t...

Six weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit Micro Paradox, a tissue culture lab in the Sacramento area. They propagate a wide variety of plants — everything from fruit and shade trees to shrubs, perennials, house plants, and succulents. Check out my post from early August to find out more about tissue culture and Micro Paradox and to see photos from our tour. Aerial view of Micro Paradox facility (image © 2026 Micro Paradox) The bulk of Micro Paradox’s sales is wholesale to other growers and retail nurseries; a selection of their plants are available to consumers through their Etsy store and their MicroStarts retail website . In other words, you can’t just drive up to their facility and buy plants right then and there. Except on Friday, September 25, you can. Micro Paradox will have a plant sale from 3:00 to 6:30 pm. The sale will feature some of Micro Paradox’s unique agaves, houseplants, fruit trees, and more, as well as overgrown stock. There’ll also be a “fill-a-tray” promotio...

Here is one of my Mangave ‘Foxy Lady’ (I have two) in its prime, a year and a half ago: Mangave ‘Foxy Lady’ in April 2025 In the spring, this ‘Foxy Lady’ started to flower. As is the case for the vast majority of agaves, manfredas, and mangaves (hybrids between the two), flowering is the end of the road. In most cases, the pollinated flowers become seed pods, but some varieties go a different way: They make bulbils on the flower stalk — baby plants that are genetic clones of the mother. Check out this post from early July to see the flower stalk on the Mangave ‘Foxy Lady’ above. It was laden with hundreds of bulbils. As I mentioned in my July post, I pulled off a few bulbils as an experiment. They rooted very quickly, so on August 14, I began to harvest bulbils in earnest: Harvesting ‘Foxy Lady’ bulbils on August 14 Some bulbils are fused together like this I filled a seedling tray with a well-draining soil mix (50% garden soil, 50% lava rock) and then stuck the bulbils into it. Strai...

I love succulents, obviously. But to create a garden , you need more than just aloes, agaves, cacti, etc. You need rocks as anchors, and you need companion plants to offset and complement your succulents. I have a variety of companion plants, including shrubs and flowering perennials, but one group ties everything together: groundcovers. There’s no formal definition of what a groundcover is, but to me it’s any low-growing plant, no more than five or six inches in height, that spreads horizontally to form a dense mat. A couple of years ago, the UC Davis Arboretum Teaching Nursery , which grows plants both for the UC Davis Arboretum itself and for their popular seasonal plant sales (October 3, October 31, and November 14 this fall), introduced what ended up being the perfect groundcover and succulent companion plant for my garden: Artemisia pedemontana . I’ll give you more details later, but first look at how good it looks.  In the backyard (sorry for bombarding you with so many ph...

Dan Zarrella ( mojave.lv ), one of the country’s leading experts on Agave utahensis , has written two guest posts for Succulents and More: Agave utahensis in habitat and in cultivation (September 2024) Agave utahensis clonal rings (November 2024) Now Dan has published his first book based on years of field research and practical propagation experience: Meeting Agave utahensis . Read on to find out more. If you’re interested, you can pre-order the book for $30 until September 9, 2026. This includes a signed softcover edition of the book, a high-resolution PDF for instant download, and a bonus packet of Agave utahensis seeds harvested from hand-pollinated plants in Dan’s collection. All the photos and pullout quotes below are from the book. © 2026 Dan Zarrella. All rights reserved. Book cover Of the 270+ species of agaves , few have the allure and mystique of Agave utahensis , one of North America’s most distinctive agaves. This is doubly true for variety eborispina , which is ...